The Rising Stones (Ihale Book 1)

was the one thing that set Heln apart.
Rhyss pulled up an illumination bubble. It was one of the first magics she had learned and it took almost no effort at all, a trickle of magic to start and the smallest amount of concentration to keep it working. Her mind felt ragged and raw—doing something familiar was soothing, even if it lit up an unfamiliar part of the tunnel a little too harshly. The tunnel she had been in was smooth and cream colored, turning so gently that it was almost unnoticeable. The tunnel seemed to have straightened out, and the walls were coated in moss. It hung down in streamers. One of them brushed her shoulder and she waved it away quickly.
"I haven't been here before." She stepped over to the wall, letting the bubble hover over her shoulder. The moss was thick and damp, glowing a pale green. She ripped at it with her fingers, pulling away thick, string strands to the wall beneath.
It felt like bricks beneath her fingers, stained green from the moss, but they might have been the same cream as the floor in a previous life. She moved her hand along the wall, even with the moss softening the features of the wall she could feel when the bricks were interrupted by a pillar.
"Playing with the moss giving you a clearer picture of where we are?" Bel had gotten right behind her and Rhyss squeaked, whipping around, her braid hitting Bel in the face. She sat down heavily, holding her nose. "Eleti above, your hair hits hard!"
"Don't sneak up on me!" Rhyss glared at her. "No. I don't know where we are. Everything is weird down here. I've never been this far, maybe there was a side tunnel I didn't notice, I don't know."
"I wasn't joking when I said there were things behind us, we might want to have this conversation while we're moving." Heln tried to sound annoyed, but Rhyss heard the note of panic in his voice.
She couldn't blame him. "Let me try to contact… anyone, first. Do either of you two have a communication crystal? I only have my wrist plate."
"Mine's at home." Heln shrugged.
"Got mine." Bel rooted around in her bag. "I think. Shut up; I don't like wearing it."
She finally pulled it out. Communication crystals only had to be vaguely diamond shaped, but usually they were embellished. Bel's was big and chunky, the wrist strap way too wide to be fashionable.
"It was a gift. From my grandma." She glared at Rhyss like she dared her to say anything, but she just shrugged. Bel sighed and strapped it on, the leather fitting too loosely on her wrist. She tapped the middle of it, and it glowed faintly. It blinked a few times, then went steady again. "Hmmm. I don't think I can reach anyone from down here. What about your wrist plate?"
"Keep trying, and I don't know." Rhyss tapped out a message, letting anyone who was close enough know that she was deeper in the tunnels and would continue on. Hopefully someone felt it. If they did, she got no reply, but hers was linked to Vin's. It was possible no one would get the message until he got back to the main Guard station. Which he would, she had to have absolute faith.
"All right, let's go."
They walked for a long time. At least it felt that way. It was hard to tell down in the depths. Rhyss let Bel take the lead without much protest. If there were more clay constructs behind them, then she would be the one to take them out.
Besides, if she'd put Bel in the back, she would have thrown a fit and Rhyss didn't have the energy to deal with it.
That left Heln in the middle, and she really had no idea what to say to him.
"So, what was behind the moss?" he asked.
"It felt like a wall," she told him. "Like someone built this place."
"They probably did, as an escape route to the Temple," Heln reasoned. "Or from. I guess the first cave was supposed to look unassuming just in case. It might have even been above ground at one point."
"I suppose." Rhyss shrugged. She doubted this place had ever been above ground. The ceiling was higher than it had been at the entrance and mostly lost in shadows, roots twisting through the rock and snaking down the walls. The air smelled damp and far too still. "We'll find a good, defensible place to camp for the rest of the night and then go back tomorrow. By then there should be a full rescue team and we can get you home."
"Yes, Captain." Bel looked over her shoulder. Her little quip didn't have quite enough bite for it to be mocking.
"Oh, I will be, someday."
Since neither of them responded it was clear that they didn't doubt her.
Good.
The only sounds for a long time were the scuffing of their boots on smooth floors. When Rhyss heard water ahead of them she almost cried from relief. Her entire life had been spent with wind whistling around her old house and leaves whispering to each other, both in her mother's garden and in the Grove. Any noise made the buzzing in her head subside.
The water ended up being a trickle from the wall, sliding down the tunnel through thick moss and tree roots into the dark. She filled up her canteen as best as she could. It had been scripted to keep the water cold, fresh, and pure, no matter the source. Some of the sources she had heard of previous Trainees using were a lot more suspect than the wall of a cave.
"I thought this was more of an in and out sort of deal." Bel said after a few moments of waiting for canteen to fill.
"I would rather be prepared. Besides. I'm thirsty." Rhyss took a swig from the canteen and tried to not make a face. There were Ihalins that would pay quite a bit